


Lost and Found

by r_lee



Category: Caprica (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/pseuds/r_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In order to heal, I needed someone to need me."</p><p>Amanda Graystone on the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyofbrileith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofbrileith/gifts).



When life is so frakked up that the only option left is to jump off a bridge, you know things can't really get any worse. At the time it seemed like the best thing to do. I couldn't face Daniel any more than I could face the ghost of my brother. I couldn't face what had been and couldn't face what was to come, even though the future's nothing but a question mark and all anyone can do is anticipate what's behind the next door and the next one and the next.

The bottom line—the only thing that counted or mattered—was that I missed Zoe. I missed her so much. At first I thought there could still be some sort of tenuous connection to Zoe through Lacy and I tried, I tried so hard, but it wasn't fair and Lacy could never be Zoe any more than I could suddenly be Lacy's mother. It was a relief, at least a little bit, when Daniel took her security clearance away: one less memory cluttering up the place, one less look of pain and guilt to notice in my comings and goings. Daniel... well, that's complicated. I love him and hate him, feel connected to and isolated from him. One thing he never knew, I've never told him, is that I've always felt kept at arm's reach by his brilliance, the enforced solitude that blankets him like his own personal fortress and keeps everyone and everything at bay. I'm no slouch in the brains department, but I could never keep up with him and ultimately Daniel wasn't the connection to Zoe either, except through DNA. Jordan Duram and the frakking GDD weren't the right connection (gods, did I really tell the world that my daughter, my baby, my Zoe, was one of the terrorists? can I claim brainwashing by grief?).

So much for brains: I never even thought of the Athena Academy. I never even thought of Sister Clarice. I might be a doctor, well-compensated, highly respected, intelligent, eloquent, but I never once thought—with all the trouble Zoe was constantly in at school—to talk to the Headmistress. But the moment Clarice stopped by with apologies, with diaries, with books, with that great look of sorrow on her face... _there_ it was. There was someone who knew my Zoe. There she was, presenting herself like a gift and all the connections I never thought of, every single one of them, cascaded down like streams, like rainbows, and I wanted— _needed_ —to unwrap them, to savor them. One at a time, one story at a time, one memory at a time. It's easy enough to blame Scorpian ambrosia for everything, convenient to say that's what finally blurred the line between Zoe and Clarice, but it doesn't even matter what the catalyst might have been. It doesn't. I was ready for someone who understood. Someone outside the _family_ who understood.

*

A long time ago, I had a brother. His name was Darius and he died. He died in a car crash on a wet windy evening right here on Caprica and I tried to hold it together and pretended to hold it together for a long time, but then one day I...

lost  
my  
mind

Three years later I saw him everywhere, everywhere. _You can't separate fantasy from reality, Amanda,_ they told me. _Your brother's dead, Amanda,_ they told me, _you have to learn to accept that. You need to stay here, Amanda,_ they told me. _Darius is gone. Then why do I keep seeing him? Why now? We don't know,_ they said. _Stay here,_ they said. _Stay here and stop being crazy. I can't,_ I told them, _I don't know how. We'll show you the way._

Getting better took a long frakking time. Daniel was the one who helped me find my way out, finally. I fell in love with his intelligence and his kindness and his complete and utter willingness to protect and support me. We didn't have two cubits to rub together, but we loved each other. We loved each other so much and he believed in me every bit as much as I believed in him. _You can be the doctor you want to be,_ he said. _We'll make it work, the two of us, together._

Having a daughter was never part of the plan. I was crazy and Daniel was brilliant and I was angry and depressed and Daniel was off slaying metaphorical dragons and there, in the middle of it all and at the worst possible time, was Zoe.

Nothing she did ever happened at a good time.

*

"Scorpian ambrosia," Daniel said, "should I be jealous?"

"Maybe."

(I meant it.)

*

When life is so frakked up you throw yourself off a bridge, the only thing even _more_ frakked up is surviving. Why did I jump? Because life was a mess, yes, but because a part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to find Zoe again that way. Darius too. Everyone I'd ever lost. Maybe I'd find my way to where they were, but it didn't work. I didn't get to that place—who thought a friend would be on the bridge that night?—and one more time, I woke up in a hospital and that was the last place I wanted to be. I wouldn't see Daniel, couldn't see Daniel, didn't want to see Daniel. This time, he wasn't the comfort I needed. Too many losses, too many questions, too many doubts, too many recriminations. Clarice, she was the one I needed because she was the only one who understood. The only one who knew the side of Zoe I'd never known. The side that wasn't just spoiled and impertinent and obnoxious for the sake of it and because I was her mother and because I'd had a rough pregnancy that translated to a rough mother-daughter relationship. No, it was time for a relationship of _real_ understanding. Finally.

I know a place, I told Clarice, a cabin. (The world was upside-down.) I'm going to go there to recover. I'm not going home, I can't bear the thought of Daniel, of Zoe's empty room. I might turn it into a photography studio some day, but today I'm going to the cabin. Please? I didn't ask her to go with me because I didn't need to. All I had to do was press the key into her hand.

Like the invalid I was, I made my way methodically into the woods. A hermit, for all intents and purposes, but a hermit with a wide-open heart. Screw Daniel and Graystone Industries and plastic surgery and mothers and daughters and religion and holobands: life needed to be simpler. Grief needed space to flourish and to overwhelm and then, finally, to dissipate.

"You look tired." Clarice brushed her hair back behind her ear, that thick dark hair just like Zoe's. "I brought groceries, just a few things. You can't stay up here by yourself most of the day without _something._ Are you sure you don't want anything for entertainment? A holoband, a television, an e-sheet, anything?"

"You're very kind." An image of Daniel in the kitchen, slicing fresh vegetables: peppers, zucchini, avocado, putting together another brilliant feast because everything he did was tainted by brilliance, but I shook it off. Daniel wasn't allowed into this space, not even in memories of his moments of unintentional sweetness. My husband wasn't a sweet man by any stretch of the imagination, although he wasn't _evil._ Clarice was sweet. And kind and caring as a priestess of Athena should—I assumed—be.

Groceries put up, she turned to me. "How are the legs?" When her hand went to my shin, I didn't flinch. There was something to be said for loving ministration. Maybe I'd never given enough of that to Zoe and maybe I'd never received enough of it in my own life, but most of my self-pity had been left behind at the bottom of the harbor.

"Do you know how liberating it was?" Clarice, of course, had no idea what I was talking about and it showed in the way her lips pursed, in the question mark written all over her face. "That feeling of flying through the air? I didn't even mind meeting the water when it happened. It was all so beautiful. For the first time in my life—in my whole _life_ —I felt so free, Clarice. I felt closer to pure than I ever had before." In that moment there had been no worries and no regrets. Only relief, only this huge relief that came along with letting go. "Have you ever felt that way?"

It seemed suddenly critical to know that Clarice had, or that she could, or that she understood, even a little bit.

"Every time I feel the touch of God." It was a soft admission. I wanted to believe her, I really did. To know that someone had that much faith was humbling. Human egos being what they were, I had to press and take it a step further. In order to heal, I needed someone to need me.

"Is that the only time?" She had husbands and wives. She was no naive little girl like I'd assumed Zoe had been. Assumed incorrectly, as it turned out. Her hand didn't move but mine did. I craved the softness of her skin, the perfume that clung to her, the tilt of her head, the innocent goodness of her smile. I craved attention. I craved care. It turned out that Clarice was very, very good at all those things, just as I had (correctly) assumed. All those husbands. All those wives. All that _experience._ So delicious.

*

"Scorpian ambrosia. Should I be jealous?"

"Yes. You should be very, very jealous. I think I don't need you any more."

(That's how the conversation should have gone.)

*

She wanted something, Clarice. That was no big surprise, everyone wanted something. Zoe wanted different parents. Lacy wanted to be Zoe. Tomas Vergis wanted to make me believe my own husband was a murderer. Jordan Duram wanted information I didn't have; the GDD wanted Zoe's belongings. Daniel wanted to bury himself in his work. Cyrus wanted to keep Graystone Industries afloat. Caesar wanted attention. Everyone wanted something and I wanted Zoe. Out of all these things, mine was the most impossible. Dead is dead, I knew it. I'd learned that lesson when I lost Darius.

Clarice wanted Zoe too. She asked and asked and asked, looking for any insight, any clues or hints I could give her. To find someone else who wanted my daughter that much was touching and I realized it must have been tremendously hard for her too. Zoe spent more time at school than she did at home. Clarice knew a side of her I didn't; I knew a side of her Clarice didn't. Together, we could put together the pieces and solve the riddle. Together, we could create a whole version of Zoe.

That's what I thought. It turned out she wanted Zoe for a different reason but by then she'd already seduced me into friendship. Into a degree of love, perhaps, but certainly into one of affection and trust. One of need. I saw myself as a set of scales. Balanced on one side was Clarice and the other held Daniel. I lost Daniel for a while (off the scales, they say) in favor of Clarice. In a way it was the second time I

lost  
my  
mind

and there was even a hospital involved again, but the diversion was... no, no, it wasn't more pleasant and it wasn't any less borne of need. It was masked by memories of my daughter and by the need to escape and by strong Scorpian ambrosia but just like before, it was Daniel and his stubborn insistence on romancing the insanity right out of me that brought things back into balance.

"You did _what?_ " I hadn't intended on going back to the house, but it was still my home, and I needed things there, and between Jordan Duram and Clarice and suspicions and assignments, it was honestly a relief to be greeted by Serge again ("hello, Amanda, it's good to see you").

"I made an avatar. Of you." Daniel set his glasses aside and ran a troubled hand through his hair. "I wanted to see if I could replicate Zoe's program."

"Did it work?" Half-curious, half-appalled, I couldn't let it go: the very thought of Daniel working away to recreate me after all we'd been through was just... insane, but insane in either the best or worst possible way. "How was I?"

"I deleted the program." Glum, he shook his head and let out a sigh. I'd seen him do that so many times and I knew what it meant: there was a problem that needed solving and it was just out of his grasp, just beyond his reach, and brilliant as he was—genius though he could be—he was ready to give up.

A challenge in the works: this was where I was best, when Daniel was at his worst and most defeated. "You deleted me? Just like that? Why?" Maybe I wasn't good enough. Maybe I wasn't strong enough, or strong-willed enough, or nice enough or pretty enough. Probably I just wasn't Amanda enough for my meticulous and exacting husband.

Through his frown, he looked over at me and it felt like he was studying me for everything that had gone wrong with Amanda-as-avatar, as if I could simply present the answer to him. "Because you were too sweet." That word again, the one I would never use to describe him let alone myself. "You kept forgiving me too easily. It wasn't real."

I didn't want to laugh—I only wanted to be here to collect a few things and figure out my next move—but I couldn't help myself. "I was too nice as an avatar. You're serious." Of course it wasn't real. I've never been particularly easy to get along with and I'm under no delusion that I ever will be. "What did I do? Cook for you and clean the house instead of watching Zoe's childhood on the viewscreen? Rub your temples when you were stressed out? Tell you that none of the things that happened with Zoe mattered?"

Those last words wounded him and I knew it, but I couldn't take them back. Didn't want to take them back: we both held responsibility for the way Zoe turned out, and we both knew it. "No. Not exclusively. You—she—just was too quick to compromise. She always wanted to make up and have sex."

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm serious. Malleability and physical intimacy were part of the programming, but I didn't want a cardboard cutout." He fixed me with those beautiful intense eyes of his. They held no apology but his demeanor did: apology and resignation, both. "I wanted you, and it's too frakking hard to make something else be you. With Zoe the avatar was all we had left, but I didn't want your shadow. I wanted _you._ "

Through newly-opened eyes filled with the fresh sting of almost-tears, I considered my husband. "Would you have had sex with the avatar?"

He shook his head. "If virtual sex was that satisfying, I'd never go anywhere without a holoband. Sad story from the guy who invented the things, I know, but I've always been much more of a sucker for the real thing." For a moment it seemed like the words _I'm sorry_ wanted to come out, but Daniel was never big on apologies. No, that was me, and in the moment I didn't feel like apologizing for anything. But there was something else that sounded like a pretty frakking good idea.

"Don't ever call me sweet again." I pushed Daniel back against the chair, straddled his lap, and helped myself to a kiss. "Sweet is for suckers, so neither of us qualify." The first thing that had to go was his tie. "So. Daniel. Did my avatar ever proposition you like this?"

I bet she hadn't.

*

"Scorpian ambrosia. Should I be jealous?"

"No."

(Maybe I romanced the insanity out of _him._ )

*

"Let's go get Zoe. Together."

Damn straight we had to do it together. Flawed though he was, idealistic though he was, king of innovative kick-ass ideas though he was, Daniel had his own demons. A lot of them, as many as I had.

But I did have one thing that no one could take away, ever, as long as I lived. Not Daniel, not Clarice, not the GDD. Not Lacy Rand or the MagLev explosion and memorial or Baxter Sarno or popular opinion. Not even holobands or V-World: Zoe was _my_ daughter. Mine. Mine, and I loved her and loved her and loved her and there were days I thought I couldn't love her any more than I did and other days I thought I could do so much better, but beyond everything else, she was my daughter and I was her mother, and I will always be her mother and I will always, always move mountains and slay dragons to protect her.

I'm sorry, Clarice, but not that sorry. I needed you for a time, and I used you just as you used me but I won, I won. _We_ won.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to my beta, Paige, for her keen eyes, comments, and suggestions.


End file.
